Jeff's Century

 

 

Jeff's Century    7-1-2011

A Century Ride is 100 miles.  Why in the world would anyone want to ride a bike that far?  The answer is in the question.  Most people can't or won't do it.  Jeff had been riding with us for over a year.  There are a couple of ways of getting a century ride.  You can go to an official event that offers a 100 mile route.  They will have supported rest stops, goodie bags, participation fees, t-shirts, big start, check points, a sag wagon, and all the hoopla.  Or, the option we chose...plan our own route, take water and food, and stop when we want to or need to.  Without check points and a official sag wagon, our wives would be on call if we had a problem out of the road we could not fix.  Jason was the best at planning new routes.  On June 11, 2011, Jason created, "Jeff's Century."  The route is still available on the RideWithGPS website.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/507966                      

We would start in Tullahoma, ride to Woodbury, and return. 

In the meantime, we started to prepare.  We put in extra miles and time on the bicycle seat.  Our morning rides had new meaning.  We now had something to train for, and a specific goal. 

Ride Prep
 
Mechanical Preparation:  Take extra tubes, an air pump or a CO2 cartridge, a couple of wrenches, some tire levers, and a couple of zip ties.  Make sure your tires are in good shape.  Oil the chain, and check the brakes.  At this point, Jeff had his new Specialized bicycle, and he was ready to go.  

Food: keep it simple.  Pack what you like.  For me it was snack size ziplock bags filled with fresh and frozen fruit, fig newtons, wheat thins, fruit loops, and half a PBJ.  You can experiment with these snacks on the shorter rides and see what works best.       

Water:  One or two bottles of water to go in your bottle cages.  Plan on buying Gatorade and more water at a store along the way.      

A few days before the ride… To get your body ready for an eight hour bike ride you have to do several things.  That is if you want to finish strong, and not “hit the wall,” or “bonk out,” due to lack of water, food, or weak legs.  And honestly, you can do everything right, and still hit the wall somewhere out there.  To get hydrated for a hundred miles,  you should start about a week before the ride.   You slowly increase your water intake, and get every cell in your body all juiced up.  You can’t wait till the morning of the ride, and drink a bunch of water.  If you do that, it will sit in your stomach, make you sick, and not sustain your effort.

Ride Day

Jason, Jeff and I met at Raphael's pizza at 3AM.  This was an hour earlier than the 4AM Friday Fifty rides we had been doing.  So as crazy as it sounds, we were ready for it.  Leaving early would get us home about lunchtime.  This way it didn't take too much time away from our families.  Also, the cooler temperatures and the fewer cars made for a more enjoyable ride.  With Head lights on and tail lights blinking, we left out.  We had water, gatorade, and snacks.  I started munching on my bag of fruit loops and wheat thins.  I have always been big on snacking all along the way, and not waiting until I'm hungry.  There would be plenty of places to stop and get real food, more water and sports drinks.  

The roads in the first part of the route were familiar to us.  We worked our way out to the old Manchester highway, and took a left at 3-Way Market.  We rode past Rutledge Falls, and then down and up the big hill on Cat Creek Road, and past the water tower behind Westwood.  From there we went by the square, then out the Woodbury Highway over the interstate. 

We turned left and went past the Cracker Barrel, taking back roads to avoid highway 53.  Twenty miles into the ride, we were on Parker road, and well on our way to Woodbury.  At mile 30, we started downhill.  In the next 9 miles we would drop over 600 feet in elevation.  These roads were new to us.  We had to be careful, not knowing the condition of the pavement, and and because our down hill speed was increasing to about 40 mph.  It was still dark, and our headlights revealed guard rails that were dented and beat up on both sides of the road.  Plus, as we thought, the pavement was rough.  This added some excitement to the ride, and reminded us that we were a long way from home.  

At mile 38, we arrived at the Woodbury-Murfreesboro highway, west of Woodbury.  We turned right onto the highway, and rode toward the sunrise.  Our legs were rested from the last 8 miles of mostly down hill roads.  Everything was going great.  We were two and a half hours into the ride, and Mconald's, our planned rest and breakfast stop, was a short six miles away.  

The first big roller on the highway was a long grind of one mile, with a 250 foot elevation gain.  Riding up a hill like that requires a long steady effort.  Jeff began to drop back and got quiet.  We all slowed down to see what was going on.   

Jeff said he had not eaten anything, and drank only a little water so far.  I remember rolling my eyes a little, and we were reminded that Jeff is a stubborn man.  He had not been eating or drinking enough to keep his energy up during the last couple of hours. An eight hour effort requires almost constant snacking and drinking.  Jeff's experience as a D1 athlete didn't prepare him for this.  He kept pedaling and said he could make it to McDonalds six miles away.  

Our pace slowed, but we kept moving east toward Woodbury.  The beautiful sunrise ahead of us became plain old sun in our eyes.  About thirty minutes of slow riding, and we arrived at McDonalds.  We had been gone about three hours, and covered 45 miles.  Almost halfway.  

                                                                                   
The Little old lady at McDonalds -

It was still before 7AM.  We were glad to have a rest, and get something to eat.  Jeff ordered two breakfast burritos, and a drink and sat down by the big window and waited on us.  I remember thinking, those breakfast burritos are going to sit pretty heavy on Jeff's stomach later.  Jason and I got our food and sat down with Jeff.  I noticed a smiling, 80 something year old lady, not far from us at a table by herself.  She smiled sweetly, and couldn’t take her eyes off Jeff.  Maybe Jeff reminded her of her grandson, or looked like an old boyfriend from years past, I don’t know.  She was all dressed up, had her purse in her lap, and wore a pearl necklace and pearl ear rings.  She had a cup of coffee, but was not eating anything.  Maybe she was waiting on somebody?  We told Jeff if he wanted to sit with his girlfriend to go ahead.  The legend of Jeff Taylor grew that day.  We had something new to aggravate him about.  During the following weeks, we asked Jeff if he had been back to Woodbury to see if his girlfriend was still waiting on him.

We finished our food, and enjoyed the break, but we were a long way from home, and Jason and I wanted to get going.  This would be our only long break of the ride.  We left McDonalds and made our way through town, by the square, and took a right on Hill Creek Road.  I noticed that Jeff’s second breakfast burrito was in his shirt pocket.  It seemed smart that he was saving it for later, and that he had not eaten both of them already.  

If the word "hill : is part of a road name, there is always a good reason.  We climbed Hill Creek Road leaving Woodbury, and gained about 450 feet in elevation in two miles.  To put that in perspective, going up Roark's Cove to Sewanee by the college is a elevation gain of about 950 feet.  These unknown roads were chip and tar, and not smooth pavement.  There were stretches that were just gravel.  The riding was slow and tricky in the gravel.  Once the roads flattened out and it also got smoother, and we made our way though the communities of Ivy Bluff, and Pocahontas, and Summitville.  At mile 71, we arrived at the store on Highway 55 in Summitville, and took another break.  We sat on the sidewalk, drank Gatorade, and talked about the morning.  

 
The early morning adrenaline and excitement had long worn off.  We were still about two hours from home.  This is the point in a long ride that you have to be tough, don’t think about it too much, and just push through.
 
Jeff was doing as good as the rest of us.  After a cold drink and a good short break, we left the store.  We crossed Highway 55, and took Rock Road to Ragsdale Road, then toward Manchester as we passed the Bonnaroo farm.  A few more miles and we were stopped at the red light at Jiffy Burger.  We crossed Highway 41 at Food Lion and made our way to the old Manchester highway, and back to Tullahoma.  By 11:30 AM, we were in Tullahoma, and began to split off and go home.  We had ridden 100 miles, and burned about 8000 calories each over the last nine hours. And we made it back home to our families safely.   Jeff completed his century ride! 

Looking back, I have to give Jeff a lot of credit.  He had never ridden a bike long distances until he started riding with me, Jason and Brad.  Now he was riding 20-25 miles with us every morning, and sometimes 50 on Fridays.  And, he had completed a 100 mile ride.  Jeff asked a lot of questions, and like all of us, made a few mistakes.  When we were together, a few miles from home, Jeff, Jason, Brad and I were bulletproof.  Nothing could stop us.  We were strong, and getting stronger everyday.  Through the morning rides, and all the time we spent together, we became close and trusted friends.  

Jeff humbled himself himself to learn something new. He was the guy that had played D1 college basketball.  But for a short time, he was the weakest guy in our group.  It didn't take Jeff long to get in bike shape.  Muscles that are used to sprinting and jumping have to be retrained to grind out a long hill, and to maintain a long effort to keep a road speed for thirty or more minutes at a time.  Jeff made the transition to bike riding quickly.  He figured out what was going on, and got stronger and faster.     

Jeff told me later, that getting in shape for this century, and riding bikes with us got him in the best shape of his life since he was in college.  He said his doctors commented about how fit he was.  He  would tell them he had been riding bikes with some guys every morning.  And he told them about the day, not too long ago, when he rode his bike 100 miles.